


Snow-mesticated

by strifery



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-05-23 20:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6128855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strifery/pseuds/strifery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a little ice forces Marinette and Chat Noir to make sense of themselves at varying hours of the night. With video games. And old movies. And the agony of realizing that your crush makes god-awful puns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Evening

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everybody! Okay, this is my first time writing a chapter story in a LONG time, so please enjoy and look out for more chapters in the future!

**5 PM**

The last of winter lingered persistently among the white-dusted streets of Paris, its grasp clinging to the warm shop windows and iron fences in the form of frost and pillars of dripping ice. Even the city's infallible heroine, Ladybug, felt the sting of the season as she swung above the rooftops, careful not to slip on patches of ice. Upon reaching her snow-covered balcony, she wrenched open the trapdoor leading to her bedroom, the action taking more effort than normal thanks to its hinges being stiffened by the cold.

Dropping down onto her bed, relief washes over the young hero as the warm air surrounds her like a comforting blanket. Paired with the heat wafting through the vents, the warmth radiating up to Marinette's bedroom from the bakery's massive ovens makes the bright room even more welcoming from the frigid winds outside. Her transformation falls around her in a glittering haze of pink sparks as her kwami flies from her earrings and stretches her tiny arms, reveling in the newfound heat.

"This feels much better than outside," she notes, watching as Marinette reaches up and pulls the trapdoor down until it's partially closed. Tikki settles herself on one of Marinette's pillows and yawns sleepily. "Expecting someone?"

Marinette's sheepish grin is all the confirmation the little mentor needs as her charge's face grows flushed from a sensation more than cold.

"You know how he is; he always comes over after battles." The teenager climbs off of her bed and bounds down the staircase leading to the rest of her bedroom, stopping at her desk to open her computer to _Ultimate_ _Mecha Strike III_. "He says it helps him wind down." She had to admit, though; the constantly hyper hero Chat Noir only seemed even more energetic when visiting her, whether he was loudly complaining about his latest video game defeat (and promptly being quieted by Marinette lest her parents hear a boy's voice coming from her room) or wildly pushing his gloved hands through her dark hair as his lips try to memorize every plane of her face.

"That's typical for your dynamic," Tikki calls down, lazily launching into the air and propelling herself into Marinette's open palm. "Ladybugs have always been good at calming down the passionate Chat Noirs. It's been that way since the beginning." Marinette grins proudly.

"So what do Chat Noirs usually do to the Ladybugs?" A soft knock echoes from above them, signaling Tikki's need for a swift retreat before Chat's arrival. Marinette moves quickly, grabbing her purse from its place on her lounge chair and opening it expectantly. Tikki gives it a resigned glance before smiling teasingly at the bright-eyed girl waiting for her.

"Well, lately, their best skill has been keeping Ladybug's kwami from getting to sleep comfortably after battles." Marinette gives her an apologetic smile, a silent promise to make it up to her later with a plate full of cookies. Tikki darts into Marinette's waiting purse right as another knock rings through the bright room. 

"Come on in!" Marinette calls out, carefully placing her purse against the soft pillows of her lounge chair. At her invitation, Chat Noir immediately drops into the room and onto her bed, habitually closing the rooftop door behind him. Before Marinette can even take a step towards him, he leaps from the small deck holding her bed and lands in front of her in a perfect, cat-like crouch.

"And so we meet again _,"_   he croons, gently taking her hand within his and pressing a kiss to it. She greets him with a smile and an affectionate ruffle of his honey-blonde hair as he stands, giving her room a quick, observatory glance. 

"You say that like this isn't a regular occurrence between us." The video game at her desk blares out its fast-paced theme music, and both glance towards the source of the sound before meeting each other's eyes with matching mischievous smirks. 

"I see you've been expecting me." Chat Noir takes both of her hands then, using his thumbs to rub small, soothing circles into her palms. "I hope you haven't been missing me too much." Marinette fought the urge to roll her eyes at the notion; between his almost-nightly visits and akuma battles as Ladybug, she truly didn't have much time to miss Chat Noir's company. But obviously, he couldn't know any of that.

"Not much more than usual," is her answer when it finally comes, and it draws a small laugh out of him that quickly smooths into a contented hum as her lips meet his. He can't help thinking that her kisses are just like her, the cheerful pink of her room decor, the soothing warmth radiating from the bakery downstairs and the pastries made within it: innocent and all-encompassing in their sweetness.

At least, that's how they always start.

Slowly, sometimes  _devastatingly_ slowly, and sometimes surprisingly and  _delightfully_ quickly, something changes within Marinette during his visits. Gentle, pure innocence sharpens into something red-hot and, in his case, painfully irresistible. Sometimes it's awakened by her fierce drive to kick the ass of anyone who dares challenge her video game skills. Other times, it's delibrate, persistent kisses and handfuls of hair and skin against leather that draw out the magic in the madness that is their rendezvous system. Chat finds himself controlled by her, as weak to the will and request of his kind classmate as he is to Ladybug; he'd dare say that her power over him rivaled any Miraculous if he didn't fear Plagg up and leaving him if he said it aloud.

He doesn't get the chance to coax any sharpness from Marinette within the span of their first kiss, however, as she pulls away moments later with a satisfied grin. Her blush is pure and content, illuminating her face with a girlish glow. Chat Noir has to stop and marvel at her for a moment before he pushes their foreheads together, and she sighs into him, wrapping the two in a tender embrace. 

"Okay, maybe I missed you a _little_ more than usual," she admits into his shoulder. He gives her small frame a light squeeze, silent reassurance that he'd felt the same way. The video game jingle starts again in the background, and this time the two break their hug, approaching the computer with renewed vigor.

Chat Noir gives Marinette a confident grin, which she returns with a raised eyebrow.

"You know, I've been getting some practice in since our last rematch. I might actually be able to put up a decent fight against you." Marinette's resulting laugh is clear and melodic, and something inside Chat melts at the sound.

"As if, kitty,"she quips, picking up her lucky pink controller and taking a seat at her desk. "You'll be lucky if you even land a hit on me." Chat Noir makes a playful show of trying to squeeze into the chair with her, but she shoves him off with a laugh and points him to another chair nearby. As he drags it over to her, his crafty smile is all the warning Marinette needs to know that there's an awful joke of some kind coming her way.

"I don't need luck _or_  video games to hit on you," he drawls with a predatory smirk. She laughs again and shoves the second controller into his hands, starting up the game before he can say anything else.

 

**6:30 PM**

 

As per the norm, he gets his ass handed to him.

"Alright!" she cheers after her 8th consecutive win. "Wow, that's a new record for you; out of eight rounds, you managed to land ten hits." Chat Noir pumps his fist in the air in mock triumph.

"And you said I'd have to be lucky to land any hits." Her grin turns smug as she crosses her arms, looking away from him in her best impression of Chloé's haughty demeanor.

"You _are_  lucky; lucky that I'm merciful enough to pull some punches and let you hit me."

"I like to think that I'm lucky to have you at all." His words leave her blushing and stumbling over how to respond. He says these things so easily to her, as Ladybug or as Marinette; it throws her off. Ladybug can never afford to lose her cool in front of Chat Noir, not in the heat of battle, but Marinette? She has all the time in the world to be a stuttering mess.

Tikki's advice from their battle with Antibug rushes through Marinette's head, as it often tended to when she needed to remind herself to stay calm. _"You are Ladybug with or without the mask!" What would I say if this were just another patrol day? ...something snarky, probably._

"Flattery won't make me go any easier on you, you know." His ensuing smile is infectious, and she breaks into a grin. "Want to play another round, or...?" She lets herself trail off, leaving him the opportunity to fill in the blank on their next activity. There was always a choice: continue hanging out as they were, usually involving playing movies on her father's laptop (a risky choice due to the probability of her father coming into the room to retrieve it) or kissing each other absolutely silly.

A gentle pull on Marinette's hand guides her into Chat Noir's lap, where she has little more than a second to settle herself before his lips crash into hers.

He's wild and overexcited and impatient and she can tell that he's been waiting for this all day and part of her burns with that knowledge, a surge of bravery welling within her that makes her pull him closer and wind her hands in his chaotic hair. A deep rumble comes from a low part in his throat, and she pulls away from him with a smile to duck down and press a kiss to the lowest part of his neck she can reach. She giggles against his neck there, and she can feel him tense under her.

"That's still _so_  cute." He groans, half-annoyed, and the action reverberates against her lips, making her want to stay there and make a home of his throat.

When she tilts her head back up, he's already there to meet her, his cheeks flushed slightly with embarrassment. His hands drag across her back, leaving white-hot trails that only Marinette could see or feel.

He's everywhere at once for her and she's overloading his senses. He's at her lips, biting and sucking at her bottom lip until she mewls; she's rubbing gently at the leather ears at the top of his head and he doesn't know why he feels it – strange, miraculous magic – but he _does_  and it's _incredible_.

Marinette's damn grateful that he didn't ask for a movie.

 

**7:45 PM**

 

The skies have darkened by the time they part, and even then neither seems truly finished with the other. Marinette is breathless in the best way, and he's dizzy with giddy affection. She's still in his lap, so she's just in his range enough for him to nuzzle their heads together, his purr returning in a quiet, peaceful rumble. She laughs and places a kiss on his forehead and he finds himself encompassed by her sweetness for the second time that evening.

The distant jingle of a bell sends Marinette slowly back into her reality, where her parents downstairs were likely serving the bakery's last customers of the day.

"Closing soon," she mumbles, her mouth half in his hair as she pushes back his bangs to leave a trail of light kisses along his hairline. He hums in response, ever so slightly loosening his grip on her waist. They've always parted like this: slowly, sleepily, and aching for more time together.

Marinette knows she'll see him again, that the moment another akuma worms its way into some civilian's personal problems that he'll be there like light in a sunrise; constant, bright, and a little too much to look at sometimes. It doesn't make watching him go any easier, though.

Their kiss has a bittersweet air of finality to it, and Marinette slides off of his lap and into her adjacent chair as Chat Noir begins to stand and stretch.

"Well, that was fun," he says, running a hand through his disheveled hair. His comment makes her laugh, her own hair falling around her face in loose, messy curls.

"Isn't it always?" she shoots back, and he shrugs, his seemingly-permanent mischievous smile glittering in the low light of the room.

"You've got me there, sweetheart." He reaches out and takes her hand, pressing her warm palm to his heart. She can feel it beating there, her touch making his pulse race. "And here."

She can't help laughing then, doubling over and tearing her hand out of his grip.

"That was your worst come-on yet!" And boy, did he have a lot of bad ones; she'd been on the receiving end of pretty much all of them for the better part of a year. He falls into snickers with her, both stupid with each other's presence.

"I had to try it at least once." Marinette gives Chat Noir a shove, pushing him in the direction of the stairs.

"Good _night_ , Chat Noir." He chuckles and carefully climbs the stairs, Marinette following closely behind him.

"I'll see you again." It's not a question, and she doesn't want it to be. He presses one last goodbye kiss to her slightly swollen lips before carefully rolling onto her bed. This was how he always left; in mere moments, she'd be watching him leap from her room into Paris's luminous night. Although she had to admit that the view was nice from her angle, watching him leave always sent a lonely pang into the young girl's heart.

At least, it would if he actually left.

Instead, Chat Noir remains sitting on her bed, pushing dumbfounded at the window door. A few creaks of protest signal that he is in fact doing something, but still the window refuses to budge.

Marinette's emotions have gone from something slightly mournful to incredulous, and she quirks an eyebrow at the confused cat in front of her. He locks eyes with her in silent confirmation: it's stuck.

She climbs up on the bed and begins pushing along with him. The creaks continue, growing a little louder with her added force, but still the window refuses to move. Pulling away, Marinette rubs at her hands, now cold from touching the window.

"Sorry...I don't know what's up with it," she apologizes habitually. Chat Noir shakes his head dismissively.

"It's fine, I can just use one of the other windows." Two pairs of eyes scale the room, stopping at each of Marinette's windows. She shrugs, her mind still concerned about her overhead door.

"It's worth a try."

They rush down to a big window parallel to the bed's stairs and push together, each growing a bit frantic when it too refuses to open.

"Marinette, look!" She follows Chat Noir's pointing finger to a thick layer of ice lining the window doors. Beyond it, flurries of snow race through the air, and the layer of snow coating the streets seems to grow before their eyes.

 _Oh no, no, no, no, no, no!_  Marinette thinks, working herself into a slight panic. She runs through the room, pushing at her smaller, circular window, then another nearer to her chaise. Neither moves, each covered in the same layer of ice.

Chat Noir watches her with urgency, worried about many things at once. _This is bad. This is_ _**so**_   _bad. Her parents could come up any minute...I can't get home, and Natalie's bound to notice if I don't show up for dinner...oh god, I could de-transform at any second! Plagg's temperamental ass would absolutely get bored and leave me here to face her!_

The girl in question seems to match Chat Noir's internal panic with an external one of her own as she dances from one foot to the other, her already kiss-mussed hair looking frayed with hysteria.

"This is bad," he says finally.

"We're so _screwed_."

"I could try to sneak around your parents and get out through the bakery?" She shakes her head at his suggestion.

"No, the door is locked, and they'd hear the bell if you opened it back up." He sighs, and she looks out the window at the blizzard outside. "Besides, I could never let you go outside in that." She's unsure of how far away Chat Noir lives, but any distance would be hard to cross in the storm.

"Are you sure, Princess?" he asks, though he's reeling with happiness at her concern for him. "I can make it, I swear." She shakes her head and points a finger at him.

"Nope, not happening. You're a rooftop cat, everyone knows that; I'd be sick with worry knowing that you're trying to hop from roof to roof with all this ice." Hell, the smaller amount of ice on the rooftops earlier threatened to give her trouble in broad daylight. Chat Noir was clumsy enough with his bad luck; the low light of nighttime plus wind and ice several feet above the ground didn't sound like a combination she wanted her charismatic partner trying to brave.

He seems to feed off of her concern for him, his face breaking into a coy smile.

"So, what are you saying?" he practically sings, and she rolls her eyes despite her growing excitement.

"I'm saying that...well, you might as well stay. A-at least until the blizzard dies down!" His concern for his identity hangs over him like a weight, but he can't help his elation over getting to spend more time with Marinette.

It must show on his face in the goofiest way, because Marinette glances at him and cracks a smile, her stressed demeanor melting away. She walks over and closes the distance between them, pulling him into a tight hug. He responds immediately, holding her close and pressing light kisses to the top of her head.

"I like you better when you're not a paw-sicle anyway." His resulting laugh vibrates against her head, and she resists her urge to bury herself back in his neck and continue her work from earlier. "But you have to promise that you'll behave."

"I will," he sighs out, tilting his head lower to pepper her face with kisses. She brings her hands from their place on his back and slides them to his chest, running her palms along the taut muscles there.

"Don't make too much noise," she continues, her voice almost a whisper. He tilts her chin up to meet her in a few gentle, slow kisses before he leaves her mouth again, biting roughly at the space under her chin. She lets out a breathy moan before her hand flies to her mouth. Her eyes dart fearfully to the trapdoor leading to the rest of her home, thankful to hear no activity below it.

Marinette shoves Chat Noir away then, backpedaling away until she's nearly across the room. Her blood feels like fire as it rushes to her cheeks and colors her red. Chat Noir watches her hungrily, and she can barely meet his eyes as a predatory glint shines among his emerald irises. His gaze is going to melt her and a night together is going to kill her, she's sure of it.

" _Behave!_ " she hisses, her voice low and growly in a way that both terrifies and excites Chat Noir. "Get too close to me and I'm shoving you out into the snow!" He gives her a fake whine, swaggering over to her with the confidence of a god.

"I can be good, I promise," he purrs as he approaches her. She's surprised that she hasn't moved away yet, her crimson blush still dusted along her face.

"Oh really? Define 'good'." His expression sharpens in a way that's almost carnivorous and makes her fear her ability to resist his next words. The feeling alone makes her want to kick his ass.

He leans in close and takes her hands, walking her backwards until her back is pressed against the wall. Out of habit, her hands break free from his to find their place on his back.

"Whatever it takes to be good to you," is his final answer when it comes, and the low heat bubbling in her core isn't quite strong enough to keep her from shoving him back once more. She's sure that she's going to combust, and her frustration must show on her face, because Chat Noir bursts into loud laughter. A second later, he slaps his hands to his mouth, and both look to the trapdoor. When nothing happens, he laughs into his covered palms and gives her a toothy smile.

Marinette gives out a resigned sigh, flicking him in the forehead.

"So..." she begins, stepping away from her houseguest to examine a nearby shelf of DVDs.

"Up for a movie?"


	2. Late Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night dances on, and so do our heroes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, looks like this part of the story will go a little long, so I'll be splitting it into two chapters to bring the grand total to four! Enjoy, and I'll have Part 3 as up as fast as I can!

**9:00 PM**

They end up watching _The Aristocats_.

Marinette was shocked when Chat Noir mentioned never seeing the Classic Disney movie before, especially considering his Miraculous persona. One trip downstairs and lie to her father later (only a half-lie, of course; she _was_  watching a movie, she just wouldn't be doing so alone), the two teenagers laid sprawled out on Marinette's bed with the laptop off to one side.

He laughs when she compares him and his flirtatious ways to Thomas O' Malley, and his crack about wondering whether or not she's hiding three kids from him earns him an elbow to the ribs.

As she predicts, he lights up when "Everybody Wants to be a Cat" begins to play and doesn't stop humming it during quiet moments in the movie.

"I can't believe you'd never seen this before," she muses as the credits roll. "This movie is like, a Disney legend!" He gives her an indifferent shrug.

"I just never watched that many Disney movies growing up."

"Why? Don't tell me you thought they were too _girly_  for a cool cat like you." She emphasizes the word "girly" with a lighthearted poke to his stomach, causing him to laugh and roll onto his stomach.

"No, no, it wasn't anything like that." Actually, he wishes it was that simple; his mind drifts to memories of himself at five, six, and seven years old, grinning broadly at stuffed animals posed over photographers' cameras and Natalie's manicured hand grasping his miniature one and leading him between shoots and lessons and shows with bright lights and names he couldn't yet read.

"Chaaaaat?" The sound of Marinette's wary singsong pulls the young hero out of his memories and back to his better reality, where his beautiful classmate's shining blue-black hair cascades down her shoulders and tickles the arm he's slung around her.

"Ah, sorry," he apologizes quickly, "I zoned out a bit there." She grins teasingly.

"Reminiscing your Disney-less childhood?"  _You could say that_ , he thinks ruefully before shaking the thoughts of his past from his head, turning his full focus on the girl in front of him.

"Nope," he chirps, getting right back into the swing of his suave persona. "Just getting lost in your eyes, no big deal." She snorts and dips down to kiss his forehead before taking the laptop and settling it on her lap.

"I always knew boys were bad with directions," she fires back, closing the movie and scrolling through the offered list of choices. "So, which one's next? _Ratatouille_ , maybe, if you want to stick with the whole 'talking animals in Paris' theme, otherwise..." She trails off with a shrug in his direction.

"What's the most romantic one?" he asks innocently, blinking up at her with wide, wonderful green eyes. She taps her chin in thought.

"Well, _The Little Mermaid_  has some romantic songs in it, and so do _Aladdin_  and _Tangled_...actually, most Disney movies have some kind of love song in them."

"Hm." He can't help growing restless, his body itching to get up and move a bit before settling down for another movie. Marinette moves the laptop and sits up, stretching her arms high above her head and giving Chat Noir an excellent view of her arching back. The hem of her shirt rides up just so, providing the lovestruck cat with the slightest glimpse of her pearly bare stomach.

Raw, feral heat surges through him, and he finds himself blushing despite the relatively mundane action. He wants to touch her; not necessarily in a directly sensual way (at the moment), but just to be close to her. She is hand-blown glass, polished diamond, a glittering crystal; something held carefully enough to keep it safe, but close enough to drink in as much of its beauty as possible.

"What movie has a good song for slow dancing?" he asks at last, taking her by surprise. At first she seems confused, but slowly, the gears in her mind begin to turn and sift through her extensive internal library of Disney songs.

"I think I know just the one."

 

**9:14 PM**

 

She skips right to the scene she wants upon finding the movie. Chat Noir vaguely recognizes the princess on the screen from scattered images of merchandise over the years, but before he can try to match a name to her face, Marinette grabs his hand and pulls him off of the bed, racing down to the more spread-out, open area of her bedroom.

With a quick check for parental activity, Marinette places the laptop on top of a nearby chair and rushes to her closet. Her face is shining with excitement, and he can't help laughing at her goofy smile.

"You're bouncing around like a five year old in a toy store," he comments as she sifts through her extensive selection of clothes. She sticks her tongue out back at him in response before pulling a dress from its hanger and holding it up in front of her trademark jacket and shirt combo.

"Hey, I'm allowed to be excited about this too; I've wanted to dance to this song since I was a little kid." He chuckles, the mental image of a tiny Marinette with even tinier pigtails twirling around to Disney music dancing through his head.

The Marinette in front of him takes a few experimental spins in front of her mirror before  grinning and bouncing excitedly.

"Okay, okay, this is the one!" She turns to face Chat, who watches her with curiosity as she stalks towards him, her expression smug as a cat with a new collar.

She takes his hand again and leads him to her open closet, gesturing to the inside. He quirks his cat ears innocently, puzzled by whatever suggestion she's making.

"I'm afraid I don't understand, fleur. Do you want me to put on a dress too?" Marinette tries not to laugh aloud as the image of Chat Noir in Reflekta's elegant, girly getup replays in her mind.

"As much as I'd love to see that," _Again_. "My dresses are a bit too short for you, chaton." Before he can inquire her about how short they are on her, she shoves him forward and into the closet, shutting the door behind him. A cat-like yowl tears from his throat as he's plunged into darkness, noises outside the closet implying that his lovely, delicate, sweet host of the night has now trapped him in a closet.

"Mariiiii!" he whines, "What gives?!" A muffled _"shhh!"_ carries through the door, and Chat Noir can hear the shuffling of fabric.

"Relax, I'm just changing! Now keep quiet or you'll be dancing by yourself!"

_Oh_. Heat floods into his face and he's suddenly grateful for the darkness surrounding him. His mind flashes back to the sliver of skin and the arch of her back from her earlier stretch, a deep warmth pooling low in his abdomen as he realizes his proximity to his semi-nude girlfriend. He shakes his head, as if to clear his mind before it wandered further and into territory one should not enter when hiding out in someone's bedroom.

He tries to distract himself by looking around Marinette's closet, using his kwami-powered night vision to inspect the clothes around him.

_Is this creepy?_  he wonders to himself as he reaches out to fan out the skirt of a nearby dress. _Snooping around a girl's closet? I mean, I guess I could see how it would be considered creepy...but hey, it's not like there's any underwear in here or anything...right? RIGHT?!_  Chat Noir desperately tries to calm himself by coming to the conclusion that most people wouldn't store their underwear in closets, and he forces down the slight pang of disappointment that ripples through him.

He picks up a dark blue hi-low skirt patterned with silver and gray painted clouds. Brush strokes cascade down the flowing skirt, bringing motion to the garment even when still. _This skirt is incredibly well-made. I wonder if this is one of her own works?_  He grins with pride upon finding the intricately embroidered signature along the waistband and thinks back to the detailed sketches in Marinette's design book that Alya proudly showed off to him. _She really is talented._

Just then, the door to the closet flies open, and Chat nearly drops the skirt in awe. She's a ray of sunshine as she grins brightly up at him. Pale yellow lace runs up her shapely arms to meet at her shoulders and extend down to her chest, where it joins with a solid fabric and flows out into a dress fit for a princess. A golden ribbon winds around her waist, cinched with a bow at her abdomen. He wants to put a tiara on her, to pick her up and twirl her around and announce to the world that the sun has been human all along.

"Wow..." he breathes out finally, his eyes wide and amazed. Her eyes fall on the skirt in his hands, and she quirks an eyebrow playfully.

"I see you've found my skirt." His eyes snap down to the skirt still in his hands, and he sputters and stumbles backwards, walking himself further into the closet.

"S-sorry! I was just- I wasn't trying to- it was just-!" His stuttering quiets as Marinette's laughter floats through the air.

"No, no, it's fine!" She gingerly takes the skirt from him and drapes it over a nearby chair. "It's one of my newer works. Do you like it?" Chat pictures Marinette walking to class, the beautiful skirt flowing around her small frame and making her look as though she has control of the very sky. He nods.

"It's beautiful," he tells her honestly, looking from her to the skirt and back. "You're incredibly talented. The print is especially nice." The sincere compliment makes Marinette flush with pride.

"Thanks, I had it made based off of a painting my mother did." He quirks an ear curiously.

"Your mother paints?" She gives him a little shrug.

"Sometimes." From there, she takes his hand and leads him to the center of the floor, pressing a quick kiss to his gloved knuckles before darting off to the side and resuming the movie.

A quiet melody starts up around them, the gentle notes unfamiliar to Chat Noir.

_Tale as old as time,_

_true as it can be;_

Marinette reclaims his hands, guiding one to rest calmly at her waist and interlacing her fingers with the other. Now this, Chat Noir could say that he knew; he'd been taking ballroom dancing lessons at his father's request since childhood.  

_Barely even friends, then somebody bends,_

_unexpectedly;_

They begin to sway together, Marinette's bright eyes looking gleefully up at her feline prince. He's enchanted by her gaze, the swing of her skirt as they spin through the room, no one in the world but them. She's dancing carefully, her bare feet barely making a sound as they cross the floor. He's impressed; she's keeping up with him as though she's been dancing for years, and for all he knows, she has.

"You know, Marinette," Chat Noir begins softly, almost whispering, "You're always so full of surprises." She hums responsively and rests her head against his chest, and he customarily begins to slowly comb his fingers through her hair.

"What do you mean? I'm about as average as it gets." He makes a resulting noise that Marinette can only describe as a growl, and guilt shoots through her heart. The last thing she wants is to ruin their dance with a swan dive into her self-deprecative tendencies. "S-sorry," she continues, hurriedly trying to back over her words, "I didn't mean it like that, I mean-"

"Marinette, do you know what you mean to me?" His sudden interruption sends her reeling thoughts to a screeching halt along with her feet, where she trips over Chat Noir's foot as he tries to continue their dance. He catches her as she stumbles, swinging her into a graceful dip before guiding her back up and pulling her close until there's almost no space between them.

The movie scene continues with them, Belle and The Beast gliding across the screen in time with Marinette and Chat Noir as both couples dance with a grace only love can grant.

_Ever just the same, ever a surprise,_

_Ever as before, ever just as sure as the sun will rise;_

"I..." Marinette breathes, still trying to calm her racing mind, "I think?" Chat raises a quizzical eyebrow, a coy smile creeping onto the young hero's face.

"Really? Then please, enlighten me, Princess: what do you think you mean to me?"

"Well...I think I'm your girlfriend. Er, maybe a half-girlfriend? I mean, I dunno, usually when you spend your free time making out with someone you can usually say that you're dating them, but we really haven't been on any proper dates...unless you count these visits as dates? Because in that case, we've had plenty of those. But, you say that I help you relax, like after battles and stuff, so maybe I'm like a stress reliever?" _Way to go, Marinette,_  she scolds herself internally, _you've managed to give the only boy you can get to kiss you to now associate you with one of those dumb little squishy toys that never seem to help anyone calm down. Nice and sexy._  

He seems to share enough of her sentiments to laugh. Marinette considers covering his mouth again as her face burns red with embarrassment.

"No, no," he says through badly stifled snickers. "You've answered the wrong question, ma fleur. I asked what you mean to me, not what you are to me." Confusion crosses over the dainty teen's sweet face.

"I don't understand; aren't those pretty much the same thing?" He shrugs, twirling her around.

"Somewhat, but I have very distinct opinions on either one." She chuckles into his collarbone, unlacing her fingers from his hand and sliding her arms down to rest around his lean waist.

"Go on."

_Tale as old as time, tune as old as song;_

_Bittersweet and strange, finding you can change, learning you were wrong..._

 

"Well, for starters, your answer wasn't entirely wrong; you do mean comfort to me." Chat Noir brings a hand up to cup the back of her head and tilt it closer, allowing him to lean down and nuzzle their foreheads together. "You mean warm blankets and the smell of vanilla and comfortable silence."

He presses a light kiss to the top of her head, and her resulting smile spurs him on to continue even further.

"You're sarcasm and eye rolls with smiles attached and the stupid jingle that plays whenever there's a K.O. in _Ultimate Mecha Strike III_."

"You're sweet."

"I'm also not finished." He walks her backwards then, carefully guiding her until Marinette can feel her back press against the sleek surface of her bedroom wall. Out of habit, her hand flies up to cradle his chin, expecting the searing kisses that typically came whenever they were in such close proximity. He grins devilishly at her anticipation, but wills himself not to lose himself in her before he's convinced that her mood has improved.

"What else can I possibly mean?" she almost whines, craving more of his contact. She's looking at him through half-lidded eyes and he almost can't stand, his legs turning to jelly from the pure heat of her gaze.

"You mean surprises," he manages, "like how you're the purest thing on the planet one minute and within the next I'm convinced that you're trying to personally drag me to hell." She grins at that, a wicked, sharp grin that sends a stabbing heat through his core.

"I wouldn't have to drag you; you'd just follow me if you weren't already there yourself." He can't say that he can argue with her.

His lips dip down and brush against her neck in the briefest of kisses, and she grumbles in protest.

"Stupid cat and your stupid teasing. I should've left you out in the cold." Chat Noir laughs against her skin, sliding his arms around her and guiding her away from the wall.

"Ah, but then we wouldn't be having this much fun, would we, Princess?" They begin to turn again, and for a moment Marinette mourns the loss of the heat between them. Her grief is short-lived, however, lost in glee and giddiness as Chat pulls her into another ridiculous dip.

They're not quite on time with the song anymore, but neither can be bothered enough to care. Instead, Marinette begins to sing along softly, the words only meant for his ears.

" _Certain as the sun, rising in the east..._ " She's looking back up at him now, her eyes just as wide and full of light as before, and Chat Noir is able to meet her with a dazzling smile. " _Tale as old as time..._ " Her words are an invitation, one that the lovestruck hero is happy to take.

" _Song as old as rhyme_ ," he continues with her, silently praying that he's getting the lyrics right. He must be, because her resulting smile could put the rising sun to shame.

" _Beauty and the Beast_..." He slows their footing to another stop, pulling her close until their chests are pressed together. Her hand finds its way into his wind-tossed, wild mass of hair to rub small circles into the area nearest his leathery feline ears, pushing another gentle, rolling purr from the bottom of his throat.

The song draws to a close, fading from the laptop's speakers as the two stand in their embrace, Chat Noir's face growing increasingly red as his purring continues. His face scrunches into a strange amalgam of relaxed bliss and embarrassment, resulting in a silly, puffy-cheeked expression adorned with a lopsided smile. Marinette giggles.

"Mon minou," she coos teasingly, making his smile fall into a faux-annoyed grimace. She mimics his pouting, moving her hand from his ear to cradle the back of his head, where her fingers can't help playing with the short, messily-clipped locks at the nape of his neck.

The movie continues through the laptop, Belle's voice cadencing through the air as the two teenagers revel in each other's presence.

"So," Chat begins tentatively, not wanting to interrupt the momentum of the moment. "Does that make me the Beauty or the Beast?" Marinette laughs, resting her head against his shoulder.

"I'd say with all that purring, you're pretty Beast-like." He snorts in fake indignation.

"Obviously not; I'm clearly the Beauty in this relationship." Marinette lifts her head briefly to ensure that the playful disbelief on her face is visible to him.

"Oh really? And what exactly makes me the Beast?"

"Because, baby, you drive me _wild_." She rolls her eyes so hard that she feels like they might roll right out of her head.

"God. _God._  That was so bad. That one should be illegal, I never want to hear it again." He bursts into snickers, keeping her close despite her half-hearted efforts to break away from him.

"What's the matter, sweetheart? I thought it was mating season!"

"Get out of my house, you felon." His coy smile only grows.

"I think you mean _feline_."

"If I kiss you, will you shut up?"

"Momentarily, yes." She gives an exaggerated sigh, putting her hand to her chin as if deep in thought. After a brief moment, she shrugs.

"It's better than nothing." He can live with that.

She grips the collar of his suit with both hands, as if she needs manual assurance that they won't break apart before she's ready. He knows he won't pull away; he never wants to. If it were up to him, he'd spend the rest of his life in their nighttime visits, the rest of the world stopped and the hours reserved for them and them alone.

He's just leaning down to kiss her when muffled footsteps echo through the room. Both teens fly into a panic, Marinette shoving Chat backward with the force of a well-placed punch. He stumbles back for the slightest of seconds before ducking back into her open closet and slamming the door behind him. She's just able to make it to her closet door in time to meet her mother's warm gaze as she pops up through the trap door.

"Hi, Mom!" she squeaks, her voice cracking the smallest amount on the last syllable. She leans awkwardly against the door, nearly tripping over her own bare feet. Sabine Dupain-Cheng laughs lightly, dismissing her daughter's clumsiness as a quirk of embarrassment. Her eyes flit from the Disney movie playing from the laptop in the corner to Marinette's yellow dress and undone pigtails, and Marinette prays to every deity she's ever known that her mother stays oblivious to the two game controllers sitting in front of her computer.

Sabine raises a knowing eyebrow and Marinette braces herself for the worst. She can't hear Chat Noir moving in the closet behind her, and she's grateful for their experience in battle teaching him the importance of being immobile while hiding.

"Am I interrupting something?" Marinette searches her mother's statement for traces of anger and is relieved to find none. _She doesn't know anything. Make something up, and fast!_

"U-uh," she stutters out, throwing a hand behind her head to feign shyness, "I _may_  have gotten a little nostalgic and decided to play princess." Sabine's smile is full of mirth, and Marinette finds herself feeling a tad guilty that she's once again only telling her parents a half-truth.

"Ah, so _that's_  what all that clunking around was!" She laughs with her mother then, playing along with the idea of her clumsily dancing through her room and silently cursing the boy huddled in the closet behind her. _Damn you, Chat Noir. Damn you and your stupidly heavy boots._

Sabine reaches down and slides a plate piled high with food onto the floor in front of her.

"Well, I just wanted to bring you dinner, y'know, since you seem to be enjoying your alone time up here." Her ensuing wink is enough to make Marinette's heart freeze with fear all over again; the time she was taking was anything but alone. Thankfully, her mother still doesn't seem onto her and Chat, and she finds herself giving her a genuine smile.

"Thanks, Mom, I appreciate it, really." She crosses the room and crouches down to pick up the plate, stopping to kiss her mother's cheek in thanks before standing back up. With another series of innocent smiles, her mother ducks back down into the rest of the family's house, but Marinette herself doesn't move until Sabine's footsteps finally fade away. From there, she quickly stoops down and slowly opens the trapdoor until the tiniest bit of her living room is visible to her. To her relief, her mother truly is gone, off to some other part of the house.

It takes all of her self-control not to slam the trapdoor shut again, and afterwards she nearly sprints to the other end of her room to throw open the door for Chat Noir.

He calmly looks up at her, as if he were sitting on a bench in the park rather than crouched in her closet. That is, if it were normal to sit on benches in the park completely upside down. Her grin of relief melts away the instant she sees him, melding instead into an expression of confusion.

"What are you doing?" He tries to shrug, the gesture a little harder with all his weight on his shoulders.

"Just chilling. You?" Marinette rolls her eyes at his silliness, gesturing to the plate of food in her hand.

"I'm out here lying to my mother _and_  scoring us some dinner, and you're here, in my closet, sitting upside down and currently drooling on my shoes." She's only teasing; she can't blame him for being hungry, for she's feeling pretty famished herself.

He pitches himself forward and tumbles out of the closet, falling into a seated position at her feet. She reaches down and ruffles his hair before striding to the corner and picking up her father's laptop. Marinette takes a seat beside him a moment later, rewinding the DVD until the movie returned to the beginning. Chat Noir manages to hold himself back from digging into the plate of food in front of him, instead waiting until she hands him one of the two forks resting against the plate's edge.

"Y'know, I hope you're happy," she begins, watching him shovel forkfuls of fried rice into his mouth. "Thanks to you and your dumb appetite, my parents think that I'm going through a growth spurt and need double portions of dinner." She scoops rice onto her own fork, blowing on it gently to calm the rising steam. "They also think that I've developed a weird thing about using more than one fork."

She takes note of the way his eyes flash with guilt, and she immediately regrets her words.

"Sorry. I mean it, y'know. I've seen how close you are with your parents, so I know it must suck to have to lie to them all the time, and I know it's my fault for visiting you so much, and I just...yeah. Sorry." _Now look what you've done. You've fucked up a perfectly good cat. Look at him, he's got anxiety._

"N-no, no no no! I didn't say that to make you feel bad, I'm – I shouldn't have said that! I was messing with you, but it went bad, and I didn't mean for it to go there so...!" She fumbles for the right words, taking a moment to let herself breathe and figure out the most Ladybug-esque thing to say to her downtrodden partner. She sets her fork down at the edge of the plate, her heart weighing heavy in her chest. "Look, Chat, I won't lie to you: it does suck to lie to them."  _But you're not the only thing I'm lying about, and they're not the only ones I'm lying to,_  she thinks to herself regretfully.

They're silent for a moment as Marinette formulates her next sentence.

"But, you know, I've just kind of accepted it for now." Chat's ears perk up in surprise, her answer clearly not what he'd been expecting. "Secrets, little white lies, and even the bigger lies; they come with being us." _In more ways than one,_  she adds silently, her eyes darting to the chaise where Tikki slept peacefully in her purse before raising to meet the piercing gaze of the masked hero next to her.

"And you're okay with that?" She gives him a noncommittal shrug.

"I wouldn't say I'm 'okay' with it, per se, but I do acknowledge that it's the way things have to be for now." Concern laces through his expression.

"For now? What does that mean? Are you planning on changing something between us?"

"No." _Yes._  Marinette brings a hand up to play with her Miraculous earring, her mind on her black-spotted suit. "Just don't worry about it, okay?" She tries to give him a smile, one that says "everything's alright". He returns it reluctantly.

"Okay...I trust you, Marinette." She reaches up and squeezes his shoulder affectionately before leaning in and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek.

"We'll be okay, I promise." She picks up her discarded fork and eats the fried rice still balanced there.

"Now eat. The food's getting cold."


	3. Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are emotional issues.

 

**12:00 AM**

 

Marinette doesn't remember falling asleep, nor does she know how she ended up with her head resting against Chat Noir's thigh, the teenage hero's long legs splayed out in front of them. She can hear him breathing softly, a gentle pattern that lets her know that her laughably prince-like visitor had too drifted off to sleep.

She keeps her eyes closed for a moment, leaning back against his torso to revel in the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

_What time is it?_  she thinks groggily as she gropes blindly for the laptop. Opening her eye for the briefest of glances, Marinette blinks at the bright screen. _Midnight...I wonder if it's still snowing..._

She sits up then, her eyes still barely open as she pulls herself into a stretch. Her foot brushes against an empty dinner plate and she's silently thankful that her parents never came up to her room to retrieve it.  

Outside, flurries of snow dance past her dimly lit window as the Parisian teen sleepily tries to piece together the events of the last few hours.

_We were eating...Beauty and the Beast went off, so I went and got Aladdin...he turned the lights down to see it better...and I think that's it. The last thing I remember hearing was 'A Whole New World' and Chat sobbing in the background._  A grin quirks at the tips of her mouth as she recalls the thought. _What a sap._

Marinette's gaze begins to lazily trail around the room, the laptop humming with life beside her. A flash of sparkling red on her lounge chair sends her mind reeling suddenly, though her kwami seems perfectly calm as she catches her eye.

"Morning, sleepybug!" Tikki calls cheerfully, floating to meet her shocked charge.

"Tikki! What are you doing out here?! He could see you!" The kwami giggles, her wide blue eyes swimming with excitement. Marinette raises an eyebrow as she wonders why her normally sensible friend would risk outing herself so suddenly.

"I don't think you need to worry much about that now," comes another voice, this one startlingly unfamiliar to Marinette. A small black mass flits by her shoulder to float beside Tikki, and after a brief moment, Marinette gets over her shock enough to make out a pair of pointed cat ears and piercing green eyes in the dark. The kwami stretches, his ears twitching in a way that was oh-so-familiar to the young heroine. Marinette suddenly feels like she's been doused with a bucket of ice water.

"Are you..." she begins tentatively, panic shooting through her body. "Are you a...um, are you his...?

"Kwami?" the little black creature supplies. "Yeah, that's me. The name's Plagg, by the way. You wouldn't happen to have any Camembert on you, would you? Gouda, maybe? I wouldn't mind some Havarti either, it's been a while..."

"Wait, so if you're out here," Marinette begins, ignoring him, "Then that means..." _Chat Noir is untransformed...in the middle of my bedroom...I was asleep on an untransformed Chat Noir...you have got to be frigging kidding me._  Marinette can feel her resolve steeling within her, her core tightening in determination as if she were masked and looking down at Hawk Moth's latest akuma. She tilts her head away from the sleeping figure beside her, willing herself to forget the flash of orange poking at the corner of her vision. She was absolutely not going to look at him, not for the end of the world. He wasn't ready. _She_  wasn't ready, and she would never ask him to be okay with her knowing his identity when she knew that he wanted so badly to know hers. _He'd be willing to do it, though, the damned cat._

"Why is he untransformed?!" Marinette demands. Plagg shrugs.

"I got hungry and wanted to see if Tikki could snag me some food. It's not like you two were doing anything, anyway." Tikki nods, confirming his statement. Marinette groans, rolling her eyes so her gaze finds the floor.

"W-well, transform him again, please!"

"Why?"

"Because he has to be!"

"...why?" The question comes from Tikki, soft and curious. Marinette looks up to see both kwamis looking at her expectantly. She groans again. This is _not_  the conversation she needs to have at midnight.

"I'm...it's just that...we're," she gestures between herself and the untransformed Chat Noir, still careful not to turn around. "It's just too complicated."

"You two did that to yourselves..." she hears Plagg grumble under his breath, prompting Tikki to reach up and grab one of his ears in reprimand. Marinette sighs.

"No, he's right." Her hands begin fiddling with the hem of her shirt, the pads of her fingers running over the careful stitches in a silent search for tears that the young designer found comforting. "After the whole escapade with the Evillustrator, Chat started coming around and I started letting him, and it's just gotten messier and messier since."

Marinette's hands work their way into her dark bangs as she pulls at her locks of hair.

"And I still don't know how I feel. Isn't that pathetic? That someone can just lay their heart bare for both Ladybug and Marinette so readily and here I am still letting him dangle on the weak lines I throw him?" Her voice breaks over her last words, a strangled sob taking the place of speech. Tikki and Plagg share a concerned look before Marinette's kwami floats quietly to her and drops onto her lap.

Meanwhile, an untransformed Chat Noir stirs in his sleep, leaving a slightly disoriented Adrien Agreste lying against Marinette's plush carpet.

He can hear her. He can barely make out anything she's saying through the blur of sleep still clouding his senses, but her hushed voice rings through his mind like a bell.

_Is she...crying? What the- why is she crying?_  His eyes snap open suddenly and he sits up, awake and alert and ready to defend.

Instead, he finds Plagg hovering above Marinette, looking...worried? Since when was Plagg known to care abut anything than cheese? Adrien immediately denounces his last thought as he recalls the rare sad glances the kwami throws his way after particularly harsh critiques from his father or from his perch on his shoulder as he scrolls through old pictures of his mother. Despite his typical demeanor, Adrien was confident that his grumpy familiar was capable of empathy.

But what could be happening to Marinette that was so bad that even Plagg cared? Didn't he barely know her? Adrien sat up quietly, his movement catching his kwami's eye. He motioned with a small paw for him to stay back, the other raised to his mouth in a silent signal. _Shhhh._

Adrien raises an eyebrow but complies, watching as Plagg points a paw at one of his ears. _Listen._

Marinette shakes with contained sobs, her words coming out in a hurried blur.

"I just can't believe myself. Chat is...Chat's just so pure. I mean, not like in an innocent way, but in a way that means that everything he says is truly what he feels...you guys know what I mean, right?" Both kwamis nod.

"Genuine," Tikki supplies.

"Naïve," Plagg offers bluntly, earning him a glare from Adrien.

"He's true," Tikki continues, and the teenager gives out a shuddering exhale.

"He's bull-headed."

" _All_  Chat Noirs have been bull-headed. It's in their nature." Plagg huffs.

"Nature or not, I wish they'd give me a break every couple of centuries. It'd be nice to get some rest for once." Tikki sighs and shakes her head.

"You spend most of your time napping and eating as it is! Besides, there are worse ways to spend eternity, and our roles are plenty rewarding as they are. Every generation needs its heroes." She looks up at Marinette then, the young girl's eyes watering above her with tears that wouldn't fall. "And you're one of them. We trust you to make the right decisions, Marinette, for yourself _and_  Paris."

"And what if I make the wrong ones?" Tikki shrugs, giving Marinette a trusting smile.

"You go back and fix your mistakes. Ladybugs have always been good at problem-solving; especially when it's a problem they've caused. That's what makes Ladybug such a great hero, Marinette! You learn from your past instead of fleeing from it, and use that knowledge to push onward!" Marinette sniffs as Plagg peeks over her shoulder to look at Adrien, who looks as if he's trying to solve a 100-piece puzzle without a reference picture. Straight up lost. The cat kwami rolls his eyes. Was this kid _ever_  going to get it?

"He doesn't deserve this," Marinette says after a long moment of silence.

"Deserve what?" Both kwamis echo back to her.

"Me. What I'm doing to him. Playing along with his flirts as Ladybug, then toying with him as Marinette...it's not fair to him. I thought I was buying myself time, time to make a decision, but...I just can't do this to him anymore. He deserves way better than being used as some kind of...I don't know, whatever it is we are, thinking that he's in a real relationship when I'm just trying to keep myself from having to decide between him and Adrien." Adrien is surprised that she can't hear his jaw hit the ground, but he quickly composes himself and continues listening.

"But keep in mind, Marinette," Plagg interjects, "It's not just you trying to deliberate between two people they love. Chat still loves Ladybug as much as ever, yet he's here with you almost every night. Isn't that kind of the same thing?" Marinette shakes her head, her loose hair bouncing in the dark. Adrien wants to run his fingers through it, like he did hours before, but he remains still, his mind afire.

"That's different, Plagg, it doesn't count as much when the two people you love are the same person. That just means that you really love them, through and through." Marinette pushes her own fingers through her hair in exasperation. "Another way that he's just so damn pure. It's infuriating. He literally loves me so much that he fell in love with both my true self _and_  alter ego. Like, who does that?"

Tikki and Plagg share a look, a broad grin spreading across the red kwami's face as the latter fought to keep down a proud one of his own.

"You." They both answer at once, taking Marinette by surprise.

"What?" Plagg lets out an exaggerated sigh, his smile creeping up at the corners of his mouth.

"They've always been so clueless, haven't they?" He gripes, not really agitated. Tikki giggles and nods enthusiastically.

"Century after century. The realization is my favorite part."

"What realization?" Marinette asks, feeling lost. "And what do you mean by 'you'...er, me, I guess, with the whole love thing?" _Brava, Marinette_ , she couldn't help thinking, _Just as brilliant with words as usual._

"Why don't you turn around and find out?"

"Turn around?! But that means seeing Chat untransformed and as much as I want to tell him who I am and be honest with him because I know that he deserves to know and I think that at this point I may or may not want him to know, _I_  still don't know who I'd rather be with and I don't want to have to make that choice too soo-"

"Oh for the love of God!" Plagg interrupts, cutting off Marinette's nervous babble. "Just turn around and face the mew-sic! Humans, they're all the same with their excuses! 'Oh Plagg, I can't let her know I'm Chat Noir, what if she's disappointed that it's been me this whole time?' 'Plagg, I can't just get it over with  and get you some cheese, I have to pace all over my room instead and brood over all these complications that only exist because I made them up!' 'Plagg, can't you just play along while I try to sort out these problems that don't exist?'" The small kwami sighs heavily, and Marinette can't help but feel like she's getting a gentle reprimand from a millennia-wizened Alya.

"Plagg, don't you think you're being a little unfair? You know how emotions can get in the way of things."

"Yeah, I know, you tell me that every generation. But still! There's a difference between reasonable emotional interference and letting yourself go stupid with them."

"Hey, I'm not stupid!" A pair of voices call out to defend themselves, one ringing loud and familiar in Marinette's ears like an old favorite song.

She turns suddenly, sea blue eyes meeting piercing green ones for the nth time that night. His eyes were recognizable, yet at the same time so foreign as her mind hurriedly superimposed Adrien's eyes peeking out at her from under a black mask, and vice versa with Chat Noir's narrowed pupils and lime green sclera looking shyly through a mop of neat blonde bangs.

"Adrien." She hears herself say his name, but she can't feel her mouth move. She can't feel anything move, not her chest as she took ragged, heavy breaths, not the blink of her lashes as her eyes run over him over and over again, and certainly not the rapid pulse of her heart as it threatens to burst. The world has stopped.

"Marinette." His voice isn't his own when he speaks, nor is it the energized one of Chat Noir. It's an amalgam of the two choked with an emotion that he can only describe as what must happen if one could vocalize a fearful heart.

They stare at each other for a long moment, enough time for Plagg time to perch himself on Adrien's shoulder and impatiently wave a small black paw in front of his charge's face.

"Hello? Can you read me? Earth to Adrien?" he singsongs, looking back and forth from the teen to Tikki, who was similarly pulling at Marinette's earring-adorned earlobe and whispering little encouragements into her ear.  Adrien ends up as the first to speak again.

"So...you're Ladybug," he begins tentatively, and Marinette nods. "I've...I've been making out with Ladybug..." Beside him, Plagg smacks his face into his tiny palm.

"And...I've been making out with Adrien Agreste...this whole time..."

The screaming starts somewhere after that statement, both kwamis watching in stunned awe as the two teens launch themselves into separate corners of Marinette's bedroom. Marinette stands and does a clumsy tumble into an area behind her chaise, yelling the whole way while Adrien stumbles backwards on all fours, backing himself into her open closet.

Tikki and Plagg spring into action as they continue screaming, each hurriedly going to cover the mouth of their respective charge. After properly pacifying them, all four look anxiously to Marinette's trapdoor, fearing that all the commotion so late had woken her parents. Luckily, no footsteps came, and the kwamis let out dual sighs of relief.

"Okay," Tikki begins, "I have to admit, the screaming is a new one." Plagg huffs.

"I told you they get weirder every time." Tikki floats away from Marinette's mouth tentatively.

"You okay?" The resulting glare she receives tells her that that was probably the wrong question to ask.

"You're Chat Noir!" Marinette whispers fiercely, her voice still loud enough to hear across the room.

"You're Ladybug!" Adrien whispers, his voice equally as sharp. "And Marinette! You just let me pine for you this whole time!"

"If you were pining so much, why'd you go after Marinette then?!"

" _Marinette_  made me feel like I had a chance, whereas _Ladybug_  acted like a snowball had a better chance in hell than I did with her!"

"So what, you don't think one will go for you, so you decide to just bury your feelings in the other one?!"

"Uh, _yeah_  isn't that what  _you_  did?!" Marinette falls silent.

"I-I was testing the waters! I wanted to see how much you would _really_  love me in the event that I ever gave in or if you were just some flirty tomcat!" Adrien looks incredulous.

"That's so stupid!"

"You did it too! C'mon, don't tell me that you _haven't_  known for months about my crush on you."

"She _has_  been pretty obvious," Tikki chimes as Adrien falters.

"I...I didn't." Marinette blinks at him in disbelief, but he shakes his head, his eyes still laced with hurt. "But anyway, if you've been Ladybug this whole time, why didn't you tell me when I started visiting you?"

"If you were awake long enough to respond to Plagg's rant, you were awake long enough to hear me. I wasn't ready!"

"Why not?! You said yourself that I didn't deserve to love you both unconditionally without knowing that you were Ladybug. Why didn't you just do something about it?!"

"Why didn't you?! You knew that Marinette liked you enough as Adrien to hang out with you and give you that lucky charm bracelet and form a coherent sentence around you — which, by the way, took months! And then you should've  _definitely_  known how much I liked you when you started visiting as Chat. You're just as guilty as I am!"

"It's not my fault!"

"It's not mine either!" Marinette feels like crying. She never wanted to hurt Chat Noir like this, and she absolutely never wanted to make Adrien this upset. On the other side of the room, Adrien is regretting everything he's said, his anger suddenly replaced by the clawing fear of losing Ladybug and Marinette in one night.

"I..." Marinette begins again, her voice watery like before. She takes a deep breath and thinks back to Tikki's words from before. _Ladybugs learn from their mistakes._  "I'm sorry. I-I was scared, and I made mistakes, and I kept making mistakes, and that wasn't right. That...that wasn't fair to you. That wasn't fair to either of us. Adrien, I'm so sorry." Adrien can feel his heart sink as the floor seems to fall or from under him.

"It's not your fault," he admits, watching as fat tears rolled down Marinette's flushed cheeks. He wanted nothing more than to run to her, to cradle her and wipe them away. But that could come later. Now was the time for making amends.

"I'm sorry too," he continues, his voice cracking over his words. "I made all the same mistakes. None of this was you alone, and you aren't the only one who's scared." He takes a shuddering breath, and Plagg pats his shoulder. Adrien lets out a quiet, rueful laugh. "Plagg was right. We emotion-ed ourselves stupid." Across the room, Marinette laughs.

"So stupid," she breathes, wiping at her tears with the back of her hand. She looks at him then, truly meeting his eyes for the first time since before their fight. "Get out of my closet."

Adrien does as he's told, carefully picking his way out of the closet before making his way to standing. "Marinette, if you want me to leave, I can-"

"No," she says forcefully, standing up herself. She steps gingerly over her chaise and crosses into the middle of the room. Once there, she extends a hand towards him. He looks at her outstretched hand, then to her, and she gives him a gentle nod. "Let's start over."

He goes to meet her, his sneakers light against the floor in comparison to his heavy boots from earlier. Adrien takes her hand in his own, and the two pull close together just as they had hours before.

"Starting over," he whispers in confirmation.

"Together," she corrects him, nuzzling her head into his chest, the scent of his civilian clothes so familiar to her. "If you want to stay, I'll always want you here."

He tucks his head down, ghosting the faintest whisper of a kiss against the top of her head.

"I'll always stay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so, that took me forever to write. I'll try my best to post the last chapter as soon as possible, meaning not several months later...hopefully. 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought, I really wanted this chapter to be natural and not like some kind of emotional whiplash. If you want to ask questions or need me to explain anything, please feel free to leave a comment!
> 
> And, if you're interested in what I was writing when I wasn't updating this on time, please check out my latest piece called Leather & Silk! It's got modern-day masquerades and hot young models and fun fashion-related puns, oh my! 
> 
> okay i'm done now, thanks for reading!


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